Posts by ShadowSystems 770 publicly visible posts • joined 24 May 2021
If the various companies subject to such laws will continue to operate in-country up to the point where they get notified that their C-level execs are about to be picked up for prosecution at which point said execs all have a "fact finding tour" of some other country & are thus unavailable for such recriminations, or if they just decide it's too toxic to operate in-country any longer, pull up stakes, & move to another nation without such onorous restrictions?
I tried to use the link in TFA to visit their site & get the specs, but the site requires JS on & script blockers off, so that was a pointless waste of time.
What are the system specs? Ports? CPU GHz? Default/max RAM? RAM type/speed? Audio chipset? Type/Size/Number of SSD's? Etc etc etc.
What makes this machine something a geek might want to buy? TFA is rather light on such details. =-/
As in, drop a file on a preinstalled copy of Win10/11 & it does all the things mentioned, without having to nuke & pave the drive to install a fresh copy.
I could buy a new computer with Win11 on it, run the program to scrub it of all the bits I refuse to accept, and then go about configuring it the rest of the way. Otherwise I have to do a full nuke & pave, which will almost always require various drivers downloaded from manufacturer sites, and make me have to jump through multiple hoops that aren't exactly screen reader friendly.
I might, *might* be tempted to buy a new Windows computer at that point, but failing that I think my next computer will be coming from someone like System76.
Dear Microsoft, you've pissed off a long time MS supporter that took pride in being able to assist family, friends, coworkers, & complete strangers to debug, maintain, secure, & speed up their Windows machines, into someone whom replies "Avoid Windows like the plague!" to anyone & everyone that asks me for computer advice. Why? Because you've gone from a company I could almost accept from an ethical standpoint to one I wouldn't touch with an extinguisher if you were on fire. And you have nobody to blame but yourselves. You've shot yourself *And Your Customers* in the feet so many times that we need wheelchairs. Shame on you & go stick your head in a pig. =-/
A Commodore 64 that's gathering dust in a box. It's not plugged in to power, has no internet connection, doesn't run any modern OS, can't run most modern programs, is impervious to all modern exploits, and any successfull hijack would vanish with a simple reboot.
Granted, it also can't do much in the way of computational grunt work, but that's not what you said. You said there was no single computer security. That view is false. There is such a system, it's just that it's also not up to the task for which you need a massive supercomputer.
But I'll happily challenge you to a game of Blue Meanies from outer space! =-)
If you're using JavaScript & trust in the same sentance without a "will never earn any" inbetween, you're not paying attention. There is no trust in JS unless the only JS you run is the locally stored, locally vetted, & locally secured code you've written yourself. Everyone else's JS code, especially if stored/run from a 3rd party server, is no longer secure nor trusted.
I know I'm insane, my Dried Frog Pills say as much, but if *I* think using JS is a bad idea, why aren't supposedly saner heads not putting the concept out of it's misery with extreme prejudice?
Ports? Screen resolution? Audio capabilities? Battery size? Average/max run time? Etc, etc, etc.
I tried to visit the preorder page to get more info, but there was a blatant void in that department. They're happy to collect all your details, you have to register that you're interested with full name, email, mailing address, business, whom referred you, etc, and all those fields are marked *Required*, but not a jot about product specs, pricing, or even when/if you can expect to get one.
It's like KickStarter, but with less oversight or product details. =-/
At SpamuelBeckett, re "Cow Town".
First, please accept a pint for your choice of nickname. I'm a fan of puns & yours definitely bits the fill. =-)p
Second, the phrase "cow town" is a euphamism that implies a town so rural, agricultural, "back water" in nature that it may only have a single main street, a single stop sign (if it has a stop light then it's posh), a General Store that doubles as either the Post Office, Mayor's Office, Sherrif's Office, or all of the above; you may have to drive/ride a horse/walk "a zillion miles uphill each way" to get to the nearest "large" town with such fancy bits as $FastFood, $CoffeeChain, a library that includes a selection of more than just old magazines so old they were enscribed on papyrus, has a sherrif's office that includes more than a single officer on duty every other weekday, etc.
In my case, my town supposedly has ~500K residents in it, we're only ~2hours drive from Silicon Valley (where "high tech" tends to get spawned like cockroaches on a pile of sugar), but we can't get high speed internet, can't find a computer repair store beyond the aforementioned BB GS, and the only reason we have an Apple store is because someone in power handed out a few fat brown envelopes to entice them to our local "shopping mall" (if it weren't for the Apple store, it would rightfully be called a "pothole with a few stores around it")...
I hope that helps clear it up (as clear as mud), but if not, feel free to pelt me with puns until I beg for mercy. =-)p.
What part of "cow town" did you not understand? There are no LUG's near me, unless I consider a 2+ hour drive each way to be "local". The closest thing to a computer repair store near me is BestBuy GeekSquad, and they *refuse* to touch anything with *nix on it. Windows, sure; Apple, maybe; *nix, no fekkin' way.
As for supposedly accessible distros, I am aware of Adrienne & Vinux, neither of which worked for me. Adrienne had the audio chipset issue I mentioned, while Vinux claimed the computer onto which it was being installed (an Intel NUC) didn't have *any* audio subsystem at all. O.o? You mean the computer I'm currently hearing my screen reader through on Windows is unable to talk to me via Vinux? *Sigh*
Like I said, not everyone can just "use Linux" or "buy an Apple", because sometimes Life likes to donkey-kick you in the fork & laugh at you while you're curled up on the floor counting the sparkly stars currently floating around your head... =-/
"Switch to Linux" only works if you don't require assistive technology to even interact with a computer at all. For example, if you require a screen reader to read the screen to you, how do you install it before it's working to allow you to install it in the first place? You need a 'reader reading to install a 'reader; see the problem?
Yes there are distros that supposedly talk to you on boot, but they're not entirely user friendly or system agnostic. As in, if the distro decides it doesn't like the audio chipset of the computer onto which it's being installed, it promptly takes a dump & leaves us up a creek. There's no way to fix a pre-OS-load-and-screen-reader-environment in "safe mode", at the POST nor BIOS screens. The only way a non-sighted person has to get their computer working again is to find a computer repair shop that deals with *nix. That's not always an easy find, especially if you live in a "cow town" that thinks "high tech" involves a digital watch with the green numbers instead of red ones. =-j
"Just buy an apple" isn't a good "fix" either, especially if the last two systems you've tried to buy direct from Apple have arrived DOA. Audio system not working? Take it to the Apple store. Apple's "fix" for a DOA computer? "Here's your money back." Ummm... fix it? "Too hard. Buy a new one." Ummmm, no? I *just did* and it arrived DOA. Did nobody at Apple bother to, you know, QC this beast?
Anyway, sometimes the only solution (remaining with Win7) isn't the best solution, but it's the one that has been working, is currently working, and (knocks on wood) will continue to work for the foreseeable future. And unless you're in the habit of updating your SmartPhone every other year, chances are that you're not all that up-to-date either. =-/
*Hands you a pint*
Drink up. It'll help drown the sounds of frustrated gnashing of teeth...
If the new OS has some feature that makes you sit up, blink in surprise, jaw dropped open in awe, thinking "Dayam, I gotta have me some of that!", then you will happily spend the money to get the upgrade.
But we're talking about Win10/11 which doesn't have anything even remotely close to anything that you want, instead being full of shite you *don't*. And you have to buy a brand new machine to get the hardware that is *barely* an upgrade from your current hardware (if at all) AND relearn where MS has rearranged all the deck chairs on the Titanic yet again? It's no wonder why uptake is low, folks are sick of jumping through all the hoops just to wind up back where you started if not farther back than before. =-/
An AI algo, some DL/ML data mining of a massive database of PII including healthcare info on millions of people, a DeepFake chatbot, & someone "accidentally" leaving an access node in/unsecured so someone can waltz right in, download a copy of said data, & inject their own video clips, chatbot scripts, & other "amusing" replies to patient questions.
P: Hey Doc, what's this wierd growth on my toe?
AI DeepFake injected reply: It's terminal. Please leave all your money to Our Glorious Leader and then kill yourself in a humane fashion.
P: WHAT? It looks like a bunion!
AI: It's terminal. Adjust your will & throw yourself under a bus immediately.
P: Are you sure?
AI: Terminal. Will. Bus. Now.
(The patient wanders away sobbing in destraught dejection.)
AI: Just kidding. It's a bunion. Hello? Hello? Must have lost the connection. Ok, next patient!
=-/
I called dibbs on having it land on Washington DC so it could potentially wipe out that hive of scum & villany. Failing that, wiping out Los Angeles, California would have the result of turning the MPAA & RIAA into smoking glassy craters, so that's got to count in it's favour, right?
/s? *Cough*
The recent story about 7Zip includes several posts by you where you were DownVoted 30, 80, or over 130 times. I normally don't see vote counts like that on anything not in a BOFH, Something For The Weekend, or Who Me? comment thread.
I try not to feed the trolls or argue with the pigs, it just keeps the trolls going & amuses the pigs. Please keep posting as is your priveledge, I'm just pointing out that I thought your choice of pseudonym was better served with a slight tweaking to be more, you know, truthful. =-J
Tell the applicant that they have to show up at the HQ in person to sign various NDA/security forms, attend a manual H&S meeting on $Topic, then get their photo taken & fingerprints scanned for use on their corporate security ID badge. The applicant will try to get out of doing anything in person for obvious reasons, at which point their ruse falls flat.
Application photos & video stills show a thirty-something $Nationality1 female, but the person claiming to be the applicant is a sixty-something $Nationality2 male? Hmmmm...
You are not the only one. Enjoy a pint with my compliments.
I recently went to a restaurant to order take out. I asked for a paper copy of their menu. They told me I could go grab their app which had everything I'd need to know. "Then I need to know how to download, instal, & run an app on a *FeaturePhone* that can do none of those things." Oh, then go online & the site includ- "You mean the site that is Not Accessible & prevents me from doing anything other than reading the title to insist I'm visiting your site even though there's *nothing else* for my screen reader to read?" Ummmm... "How about you provide a paper copy that I can take home, decide if I want to place an order with you, and then send a sighted helper out to do just that?" Well, they can just download our ap-
This is me leaving & taking my money elsewhere. You make it impossible for me to do business with you, don't be surprised when I take that as you having told me to fek right off because you don't want my money. I bet it spends perfectly fine with your competition. Bastards.
Companies seem to think that *everyone* has a SmartPhone. They do not. There are many valid reasons someone might not, among them cost, viability (how long does it last versus a FeaturePhone), security (FeaturePhones don't need updating as often if ever, since they don't include all the security flaws inherent in a supposedly smarter device), and often don't include functions deemed deal breakers for whatever reason (headphone jack, removeable battery, expandable memory, etc). All those hundreds of billions of Chinese & Indian users that still buy FeaturePhones each year must have a reason, no? I wonder what reason that might be? How about that a mere FeaturePhone makes it just a smidge more difficult for our every belch & fart to be tracked through a device with an always-on mic, user-facing webcam, & a battery that can't be removed to force such bits have been defanged.
Some of us value privacy & security. Others want convenience. Members of the first tend to look upon the second & wonder WTF they're thinking. Then we remember, they *are not* thinking, which is what caused the problem in the first place. =-/
I use it for all my file compression needs. I don't care that the coder is $Nationality, I merely care that they've done a good job, are doing a good job, & will continue to do a good job for as long as the program is supported.
To the fear mongering troll, I hope you trip off a curb & fall under a donkey suffering from excessive runny fecal explosions.
All I need is a passport, plane tickets (1st class natch!), and a fekton of cash to spend getting used to the area so I can then spend said funds doing touristy things. Restaurants, looking for a decent/cheap place to stay, determining what form of daily transportation I'll require for my needs, etc.
"But it's entirely digital, you don't need to actualy LIVE here!" Yes I do. I require (cough) much tropical sun, sandy beaches, salt water soakings, & fruity drinks delivered by nummy local nymphs as I "recouperate" on the beach, laptop on a stand beside me beneath a beach umbrella (do I have to, y'know, turn it ON?), and a good book to help me take long, recouperative naps in a climate more condusive to my mental health. =-D
Seriously, I'd love to move there. The weather is a dream, the cost of living reasonable, & except for the odd natural disaster, I could envision myself having a rather nice retirement there. Too bad I'm poor & couldn't afford to *swim* there much less fly there. *Comical pout*
A houseboat, a sheltered cove, & a hammock sounds like heaven...
What are some other decent comedies in the Benny Hill, Fawlty Towers, Mrs. Brown's Boys, etc style of amusement? I don't watch sports because all I hear is screaming, cries of pain, & copious amounts of what sounds like ten ton fish smacking into tarmack at high velocity, not exactly worthy of sticking around instead of listening to something funny, like an episode of Red Dwarf or something. =-J
Especially the backup I made to retain the paper, audio, & video trail that proves that the target of the blackmail will be very horrified to realize is no longer subject to corporate retention policies.
*Cough*
I, uhh, I mean, ummm...
Look over there! A distraction! ---===>>>
<<<===--- Runs away...
ISTR from a different story about these little beasties that it used a proprietary thingamajig to connect something & the folks commenting were worried that the company would either fail to offer that connector in the future, no 3rd party vendors would offer the connector, or that replacement parts would be difficult/impossible to find. If that's true, I'd avoid this machine like the plague. I've been burned before by vendors using such bits & then turning around to no longer support their own damned product.
If it is NOT true & it's all COTS hardware, then I could envision getting one to yank the drive, replace it with a similar/larger capacity one, & installing a decent OS on it instead. (If it ever got screwed, I could put the untouched original back in place & get the company to fix it under warranty.)
A nice new shiny computer sounds great, but not if I have to take Win10/11 infesting it.
"Fuck 'em", yes, with electron microscope fine tax audits of every single C-level exec for the past ten years & the next fourty to come. Just to make sure that none of those bribes, errr "grants", find their way into personal accounts instead of to fund the projects as intended.
I'll second your basic premise & add that my screen reader makes such emails obscenely easy to determine are not from whom they claim. When "My B4nk" or "P4ypa1" sends me something, I hear that those bits include numbers instead of letters, so I immediately know they're shite. When the From: box includes domains like "Citibank.Google.RU" or some other weirdness, I hear that fact as my 'reader reads aloud the email headers. But my favorite is when I get stuff from senders that include emoji &/or those BoldCapitalItalicized fonts that my bank never uses & no legit business would touch for the same reason they wouldn't send email written in Comic Sans or Wingdings.
A subject line full of underlines, emoji, idiotic fonts that make the line an utter hell to listen to? It may LOOK pretty, but it SOUNDS like the marketing department has taken to eating their crayons & posting while tripping. =-/
Back when I could still see, I made sure I could look out my window merely by looking over the tops of the monitors rather than down from my elevated sitting position. I can confirm that the scenes out the window definitely helped improve my general sense of well being. But then, the scene out my window often included the local All Girls Wrestling Team out practicing their throws & falls in the park. It's amazing what a bunch of sweaty, grunty, athletic young attractive people can do for one's mood. =-)p
You use a chainsaw? Well la-dee-dah. Mister Hoy Polloy gets to use the power tools for their dismemberment fantasies. The rest of us plebs have to make do with a sharpened rusty spoon & a whole lot of elbow grease.
It must be nice being rich enough to afford actual power tools. What's it like, Mister Posher-Than-Thou? =-)p
I'd rather the media simply break out the ShockySticks(TM) & start zapping any idiot that even hints at such obvious BS phrases. "No you don't, otherwise this shitshow never would have gotten to where it is now."
Maybe issue fully charged, full auto, Tasers with super charged battery packs to anyone in the back rows -- anyone not close enough to make use of the ShockyStick(TM) & needs a ranged weapon -- so they can stand up, form a firing squad, & zap the idiots from afar. "If I hear 'we take' one more time, I'll swap dead battery packs & KEEP GOING until you're a smoking, twitching lump!"
*Deep sigh*
Damn my fantasies of righteous retribution... =-J
Why the hell would a *voice mail message* include an *email attachment*? I figure the blending of VM & email must be a SmartPhone thing that you young whippersnappers have dreamed up in a drug-fogged brain-fart of epic proportions in the demented belief that it was hip & cool.
A voice mail message is just that, an audio recording of a person's voice. It does not & should not include anything else, otherwise it is no longer something one person leaves for another, it becomes a form of MMS/SMS akin to a video message clip, text message with animated emoji, or other idiocy that only a "Gen Z'er" would think is useful/appropriate/cool. (Am I the only one that hears "Gen Z" & thinks "Zombies!"?)
If there's an email attachment, then it's email not voice mail. If it has an address that immitates a valid sender in your contacts list, move it to the junk folder (if not already there) & warn your network security folks about it. If it has an attachment, especially if it's an HTML document, don't open it in your browser, use Notepad, Notepad++, or some other non-internet-connected text editor instead. View the source, ignore all the crap code, & focus on the content. If the server of said content is not inside the corporate network, don't visit that site. If there's JS embedded, don't enable it. If the content of the HTML file is just a "click here to read this" style command, don't click the link, forward it to your security folks, & save yourself a megaton of headache.
*Wanders off muttering about the youf of today antheir newfangled doohickies*
"The Microsoft Bork Fairy" is evidently in charge of their impotent QA department & seems to enjoy the full-auto-fire setting on that combat shotgun they use to shoot themselves in the feet.
A fix that breaks the networking capability of a computer, the "fix" is to turn off that bit of the OS, and then ... download a fix how? "Get it from a different machine" is not an option for anyone not graced with the disposable income to afford multiple machines. "Roll back our fuckup" is also not a great look for MS, but then it's merely a reflection of the drooling, shambling, brain dead zombie that is Microsoft. This coming from a once proud Windows fanboy, now pissed off Windows hater. =-|
I had considered such a move, but that would ultimately hurt the students more than the district head. I decided instead to leave the bill outstanding & just write it all off on my taxes. I listed a fair market value for each system, multiplied by the number of systems, tacked on an hourly rate for each system that would cover having the job "professionally done", and submitted that to the tax goons. They raised an eyebrow, called the school to verify that I wasn't yanking their chain, nodded & hung up with a "Well I'll be damned" before approving my credit.
The district head didn't pay me, but I'd like to think someone at the tax office had a serious word with him & wielded a rather brutal red pen come budget time the next go round. "We're sorry Bob, but you cost us one HELL of a charge for some bloke that did volunteer work for you, you refused to reimburse him, and WE had to pay him instead. We're taking that money out of your budget & I'm making a note to audit your personal returns for the next decade. Now get out of my face before I call Security."
*Cough* =-)p
In the end it all amounted to naught. My ExWife's then-hubby worked at Intel & convinced them to donate new computers to the lab. The school went from Packard Bells running Win95, to brand new Dell's running Win98. More RAM, better video/audio, faster networking (gigabit LAN versus the 10/100 I'd been able to afford), and all the bells & whistles. The oohs & aaahs lasted right up until the first computer crashed, at which point the "Super Hubby" proved to be a Super Dud when he refused to *support* any of said new kit. Did the school have the budget to pay for support? Nope. Was I in any position to volunteer? Nope. Did the school lose their computer lab for the next few years until another Computer Guy could be drawn in to help? Yup.
Be wary of a geek bearing free gifts, they may refuse to support what turns out to be utter shite disguised as shiny-shiny. =-/
I volunteered at my son's elementary school (K~6th grade) to be their "Computer Guy" & bring their dead computer lab back to a working state. A bunch of Packard Bell boxes running an early version of Win95. Utter useless as they were, they all required an upgrade to the RAM, video card, networking (from ThickNet to Cat5), and a HDD that didn't rely on actual *rust* in the phrase "spinning rust". They didn't have any budget for "useless upgrades" (as the district head put it) so I essentially did it all out of my own pocket. Once they were all upgraded to a state where they could run anything newer than DOS at a rate that wouldn't get them assaulted by the monkies (children), I then went to work to update them to a newer version of the OS...
It took a subjective forever to get them all to a state where I could even THINK of installing various educational software like Encarta, various math/reading/early science/etc that their teachers would approve of, and various age-appropriate games (Jardinians, Oregon Trail, a Space Invaders clone that used "math meteorites" you had to calculate the correct answer to destroy, etc) that the monkies would desire. Once they were at a state where I thought they might withstand the abuse of said monkies, I made a backup image of the default system, and declared the computer lab Open For Business...
There was much cheering from the students whom hadn't had a working lab in so long that many had forgotten how to use the computers at all, a skill that was quickly remembered once a mouse was in their tiny little paws. Cue much delighted howling as chickens got blown up, settlers got eaten by wolves, & meteores got exploded. Cue many a pint bought me by the teachers whom, upon the restoration of the lab, now had a "free period" in which their students got to use the lab & the teacher got a break from the little shite-flinging monsters. That I'd included truely educational stuff (like Encarta) only helped those pints flow in their thanks. All seemed well until...
One of the more inquisitive monkies managed to find the File Explorer & started poking around the file system. They noticed a bunch of files that all had the same extension, but were not for some reason stored in the same place. So they decided to "clean up stuff" & move all the same-extension files to a same-name file folder. All the *.DLL's in a DLL folder, all the *.EXE's in an EXE folder, etc. The system kept running somehow, right up until the monkey told it to reboot, at which point the computer happily shite itself. Up goes a hand & the dreaded phrase uttered from little monkey lips: "Computer Guy, my computer's gone bonkers."
It took a while before I figured out what the kid had done, at which point I had to restore the computer to the default image. This wouldn't have been so traumatic except that it erased the little monster's high score in their favorite game. Cue much anguished howling, gnashing of teeth, & crying. I soothed their nerves by editing the not-really-a-text-file high score file to restore their score (minus the penis pun "initials"), and told them not to ever do the "cleaning" again or I'd refuse to restore their score. THAT got the little monster's attention, yes indeedy do.
I wound up earning "Volunteer of the Year" & enjoyed many a pint in after hours celebrations, but I swear to Cthulhu that those little monkies nearly drove me even more insane than I already am. =-Jp
I agree, it would kill the free flow of conversations in a natural, face-to-face style where one person's comments tend to spark creative tangents that often lead to new & interesting concepts, products, or services. Like two people talking about types of butter & winding up bringing to market a new & innovative way to produce inexpensive & tastier/healthier grapes. What do grapes have to do with butter? Nothing, but their train of thought derailed so hard that they came up with something along those lines.
You can't get that same creative-idea-generating, concepts molding like clay, bouncing ideas off each other until you wind up brainstorming The Next Big Thing, if every single post has to be cleared, vetted, & posted through an editorial team. Especially if that team is also the government censors doing their best to stomp a jackbooted foot down on anything that *might* be subversive.
"We're sorry, that topic is Not Allowed. You will be reported for being a subversive."
WTF? I was talking about making buttered popcorn & sharing it with my girlfriend at the movies. How is that subversive?
"We're not allowed to tell you that. Asking about it is subversion. You will be reported."
At which point "The Last Generation" folks will have the last laugh. You won't HAVE anyone to bully about if your population falls so low as to be unable to support itself, much less all those elderly Powers That Be that need medical help for their infirmaties. Need someone to change your folley bag? Too bad, there's nobody left willing to help you; they're too busy starving to death in a nation that can't feed itself because all the "youngsters" are over 50 & in need of medical help themselves.
TL;DR: China: The Totalitarian Guide to shooting yourself in the foot.
*Yawns, stretches, scratches chest, & looks at you sideways*
You rang? =-)p
"Sometimes when you stare into the void, I stare back. Usually making funny faces, blowing feisty raspberries, & doing the Frenchman atop the castle walls taunting routine from Monty Python."
Got a cellphone? You've then got everything you need to make said recordings. Buy a phone case with a belt clip, clip the case to your shirt near your ear "so I can hear it ring when it's noisy around" (so the camera records where you're facing), and set it to save the recording to a large SD card or your cloudy file space. Granted, the battery will quickly go dead, but that's not as important as having 999 on speed dial for when someone realizes you've recorded them without warning them of that fact first & then beats you senseless before depriving you of said recording device.
I keep a small (business) card taped to the case with "Warning: You are being recorded for legal purposes." in 6 point type positioned so it can be seen (but not read) by anyone in front of me. It's amuzing when they get nose-to-card trying to read it, finally figure out what it says, & then leap back trying to escape the camera...
Which was never on because my phone is a FeaturePhone with only a single camera *on the back* (covered by the case), and of such low resolution that it probably couldn't make a decent recording if it tried.
I can't help but laugh when I tell them they've been pranked. They get mad, then relieved, then call me dirty names... which all gets caught on camera because I'm a lying SOB - the camera has been recording the entire time, the case has a hole in it for JUST this purpose, and I'm a terrible little shit. =-D
*Runs away before you kick my arse*
In order to drive all those monitors in a realistic fashion you will need a lot of data, especially if they are "4k" or higher resolution. The higher the resolution the fatter the data pipe you'll need to handle it all lest your pseudo-holodeck become a herky-jerky glitch-filled "flip book" level of craptastic animations. Bandwith that is so far from ubiquotous that it's not even remotely amusing. So until everyone everywhere can enjoy a gigabit of bandwidth anywhere, everywhere, every time, (at home, on the road, in the dead spots along your daily route to enjoy a pint, etc) then your experience will be "less than optimal".
And that's for the folks with perfect visual senses & the motor skills to manipulate all the kit required to enable such an environment. The blind (300+ million around the world at last count) might not be able to make much use of those VR goggles. The haptic gloves maybe, but even that isn't a given depending on how awkward & cumbersome they are to even put on much less use. Granted, the lack of a video feed cuts down drasticly on the bandwidth required, but still...
"The blind are a niche market" you say? A market segment of which you may become a part when your age-riddled eyes get all cataract glazed, myopic, astigmatism, blah blah blah. Those haptic gloves may prove difficult/impossible when your arthritic, palsied, spasmotic muscles refuse to let you even get the danged things on much less make use of them. A segment almost all of us will enter eventually (unless/until we die) that makes such technology a bit of a faff.
But, and this is the truely idiotic part of this article, a survey of a thousand people to estimate general sentiment on a topic is *not* enough of a survey to make a butterfly fart's difference. Perhaps a hundred thousand of a specific age group, but a mere thousand spanning "wet behind the ears to nearly dead" means you've got SFA as a slice of the pie in any individual catagory. If you survey 1K people across five different catagories, that implies two hundred people in each catagory. If you think asking a ten-score of folks is sufficient to generate any meaningful conclusion therefrom, I'm sure a few Statistic teachers would like to have a word with you.
TL;DR: Faulty surveys generate faulty conclusions. "GIGO" at it's finest.
What you propose will be a never ending arms race between people building ever more armored cables & Mother Nature making ever more heavily toothed beavers. Eventually we'll see ten ton armored beavers just shoving trees over with teeth the likes last seen on Sabre Toothed Tigers.
I, for one, praise our new ten ton armored beaver overlords. =-)p
I know IE was never popular, but IE11 has one massive plus point in it's favour: the fact that as far as Screen Readers & other Assistive Technology is concerned, It Just Works(TM). No problems with funky icons that don't have AltText descriptions, no funky "hamburger menu" gubbins that have nothing to read to the visually impaired, nothing that really drops a bag of spanners in the gears & causes the whole machine to come to a metal shredding, lubrication igniting, parts fuzing, catastrophic halt.
Unlike Chrome & Edge which have many such issues & nobody seems to GAFF about fixing them to (restore? add in the first place?) functionality. The attitude seems to be "It works fine for us, so sucks to be you, huh?" to which I'd like to break off a ClueBy4 upside their skulls in Karmic bitchslap. *Deep calming breath*
Yes there are other browsers, but they've all got their little quirks & foibles that drop the occaisional hurdle in the path of the blind person trying to figure out WTF is happening & HTF to Get Shit Done(TM). Is that unlabeled icon something I need, or is it the "reformat your hard drive without confirmation" button that I'll regret? Is that silent bit of screen the place where the controls are hiding that prevent me from ticking the "Don't sell all my PII to everyone & their dog" box? We can't see it, our SR's can't read it to us, & we're prevented from GSD because someone sighted didn't think it was important enough to describe for the less-than-perfectly-sighted.
This is not a request for alternate browsers, it is a lament that other browsers can't seem to do what that crusty, ancient, out dated, out moded, unsupported monstrosity can do but the newer, modern, bright & shiny, supported ones can not. What's that say about those new ones that can't fully do what the old one can? I'll give you a hint & "security" isn't one of them.
Turn scripts off, refuse JS at all, block cookies, reject a site's ability to store any data about your visit at all (no DOM, etc), and stop accepting that ensuring security means losing privacy. If my bank can render without those bits & do so with the padlock icon (which has AltText TYVM), then all the modern sites that can NOT need to go back to the drawing board & have _competant_ WebDevs in charge of site creation. =-/
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